Much travelled G1-winning rider is the only British jockey in the red-hot Hong Kong riding community
Hong Kong: When Harry Bentley packed his bags for Dubai in November 2020, he had every intention of returning in time for the next Flat turf campaign back in Britain.
The Middle East had been the jockey’s winter destination of choice for 11 years, whether in Qatar, where he is a six-time champion, or the UAE. But out of the blue came the offer of a short-term contract in Hong Kong – and 16 months after he left Britain, Bentley has still not been home.
“I’d only planned to leave the UK for four months to go to Dubai then all of a sudden I had an offer to go to Hong Kong without having anything sorted back home,” says Bentley. “It was too good an opportunity to not come.”
Bentley, who has ridden more than 1,000 career winners, was best known In Britain as the regular partner of Limato, on whom he recorded his two G1 wins in the July Cup and France’s Prix de la Foret.
In Hong Kong, where he is the sole British rider, he has had to start from scratch again, yet with 16 wins on the board at the midpoint of his first full season, he believes he is on the right path.
“I really did come here with very managed expectations,” he says. “I just wanted to get my head down and work as hard as I could to try to break into the jockeys’ ranks, which is notoriously difficult.
“I feel like I’m getting a bit more of a foothold now. The start of the season was a little bit slow but over the last couple of months things have really started to take an upward trajectory. I am riding for lots of different trainers and riding winners for them. I really feel like things are clicking into place.”
February proved a rewarding month with valuable wins on Graceful Heart and Invincible Missile to complemented his July success on Preciousship in the Sha Tin Mile Trophy, his biggest win to date.
“I wanted to use last season as a fact-finding mission to see how I could adapt to Hong Kong and if it was something I could do long term,” says Bentley. “Winning on Preciousship was a sign that I could give it a go.
“I was offered another six-month contract at the start of the season, but once I rode that winner, which gave me five winners in three months, I got the right feeling.”
Home now is an apartment overlooking Sha Tin racecourse where he, and the whole of the Hong Kong racing community, are locked down under COVID-19 restrictions, from which they are allowed to emerge only to go to the racetrack.
His time confined to quarters is not wasted, with Bentley studying the Hong Kong Jockey Club website as his primary resource for the riding opportunities that he hopes can bring more success.
“It never stops,” he says. “It’s not a matter of the entries coming out and then you fix your rides from the list. They are all done way in advance, so I will roughly know what rides I have two or three weeks ahead, sometimes more.
“Everyday I go through the races and form on the Hong Jockey Club website, send messages to trainers constantly to ask for rides. To be honest, I either get no answer or I’m told somebody else is riding them!
“There are a lot of knockbacks but you have to take it on the chin and keep asking. As we are not allowed agents, it’s all down to you and if you sit at home and don’t pick up the phone, your book of rides will be looking quite empty.”
He continues: “Now things have got better, trainers are asking me to ride for them as well but at the beginning of the season my phone was quite quiet. I was getting rides but not the quality I wanted. It’s extremely competitive. We are all vying for the rides and all racing on the same racedays. It’s quite ruthless but you have to be thick-skinned.”
The challenge of breaking into Hong Kong has beaten many past visiting jockeys but with a total of 21 victories, Bentley believes he has laid the foundations for a successful stay.
“I have no plans to come back any time soon,” he says. “I want to make a good go of things in Hong Kong. I’d like to see myself here for years to come.
“I am 29 at the moment so even if I did a few years here I would still be young enough to return home and ride competitively.
“I’ve been fortunate to get some rides in G1 races, which is really good when the fields are small. That feels like a big achievement. Going forward I would love to be winning Group races and being very competitive in them. Short term those are my aspirations.
“I haven’t set myself any numerical targets but I just want to get as many winners on the board in my first season as possible and hopefully people will sit up and take notice so I can hit the ground running next season as well.”
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